When I wrote in my post on Sjöwall’s & Wahlöö’s Murder at the Savoy that the authors were taking the whole of Swedish society into their analytical focus, I was not entirely correct – with all the harsh criticism there remained at least one area where things still seemed to be for the most part as they should be, namely the Swedish police. Certainly, there was the occasional incompetent cop, the occasional bureaucrat who cared only for his own career, but overall the novels gave the impression that police was filled with people like Martin Beck or Lennart Kollberg – far from perfect, but hard-working and well-meaning people.

All of this changes with The Abominable Man. This seventh novel in the series opens with an aged policeman being murdered in his hospital room, and the ensuing investigation into his death not only reveals him to be incompetent, narrow-minded, reactionary and prone to use violence, but also makes it clear that everyone knew about this, that in fact he trained many young policemen (with rather questionable methods) to his way of thinking, and that the only reason his career in the police came to a sudden standstill is the arrival of a more liberal climate in Swedish society during the sixties – a climate which by the end of that decade (when I presume the novel takes place) has already begun to fade again. And the farther the investigations proceeds, the more heinous the things uncovered about the current state of the Swedish police service – civilians being harassed, arrested on a whim, beaten up in police cars or cells, even left to die – and all of it without the least recriminations, complaints being squished by blind solidarity among police officers or swallowed up without a trace by the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the legal system.

At the same time, this is probably the most fast-paced and action-packed volume of the series so far, taking place within a single day and ending with an extended edge-of-your-seat-tension finale (and a rather high body count). A finale that also is highly symbolic – the Swedish police is so rotten to the core that it is beyond redemption and impossible to reason with, and anyone who attempts it is in mortal danger. It is hard to pick favourites here, but this might just the be the best installment in what has been a consistently excellent series (but of course there are still three more novels to go).

This 7th book in the Martin Beck series is a tad more crime fiction rather than mystery but still a great read. The look at how police corruption begins and spreads is fascinating & terrifying. Much of this could have been written recently, so it kept surprising me to remember that this book was first published in 1972. ( )

In a ten-part detective series characterized by its social critiques it's inevitable that one volume must address the police force itself. Who will protect society from those charged with protecting society? If the police force is corrupt, what is the citizenry to do?

This questions is unfortunatley as relevant today as it was in 1972 when The Abominable Man was first published, at least in the United States. There is a very good chance that the state of Georgia has just executed an innocent man after the Supreme Court refused to issue a stay last Wednesday and President Obama refused to intervene in any way. Meanwhile, in Fullerton, California bystanders recently filmed police officers beating a homeless man so severely that he later died.

As bad as both these examples are, the current situation is much better than it was in 1972 when police officers, at least in Sweden as it's depicted in Sjowall and Wahloo's novels, did not have to account for their actions to anyone. Anyone that mattered at least.

This is the setting for The Abominable Man, volume seven in The Story of Crime, the Martin Beck mysteries.

The story opens with the murder of a police officer who lays dying in a hospital bed. Now retired, former Chief Inspector Nyman was never a beloved police officer. Few of his coworkers knew anything about his private life; his family knew nothing of his police work. It's not until he is found knifed to death that anyone takes a serious look at his career. The detectives working the case have no evidence to go on. (This has been the case at the start of every Martin Beck novel so far.) All they know is that Nyman used to be a police, when they force themselves to face facts they know that Nyman was a bad police officer.

They soon determine their prime suspect to be former detective, Ericksson, who long held a grudge against Nyman. Ten years ago, Nyman arrested Ericksson's wife thinking she was under the influence of narcotics and left her chained in a cell unattended. She later died, a result of her diabeties and the officers who failed to get her the medical attention she needed. What they carelessly mistook for narcotic intoxication was actually the need for insulin. Ericksson, forced to continue working alongside the officers who caused his wife's death, along with many others, eventually lost his job as his life spiraled out of control. He goes on a killing spree once he finally loses custody of his daughter to the state.

Even with the presence of Sjowall and Wahloo's cast of good police officers, Martin Beck is far from the only one, The Abominable Man is a stinging indictment of a system that left the public unprotected from bad police officers as it encouraged good ones to turn a blind eye whenever they saw a colleague violating the law even in the most extreme circumstances. It's unfortunate that this story is still so pertinent, but it drives home the point that detective novels need not go to extremes to find subject matter. There is plenty to be dealt with in the work and lives of the detectives themselves. Real police work, done in the real world, is fascinating stuff. Something great mystery writers have always known. ( )

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. It both analyses what makes people commit horrendous crimes, and what constitutes good policing.

We learn early on that the high ranking police officer killed was not a good policeman. Martin Beck's colleague Kollberg says "he was a barbaric son of a bitch of the very worst sort." His name was never discredited, and complaints against him never got past the submission stage. And many of the current personnel in the Stockholm Police force were incredibly loyal to him because he had trained them.As the blurb indicates, there is no shortage of people who would be glad to see this person dead, but just one has reached the point of no return, deprived of both his wife and his daughter by this man.

The authors also make some interesting commentary on what happened to the city of Stockholm in the 1960s when 90% of the old city was demolished to make way for "modern" development.

This series follows the changes in Martin Beck's personal life as he rises in the force. He is now the chief of the National Murder Squad, his marriage has collapsed and he unashamedly lives for his work.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of these novels is the amount of descriptive detail included, and small nuances in relationships between the men who make up Beck's team. Beck is very demanding, but he does not demand any more from them than he does of himself. ( )

Wikipedia in English (1)

"Seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series," together known as "The story of crime." "The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strongarm police work and sheer brutality. Martin Beck and his colleagues feverishly comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds and a feeling of imminent danger grips Bec, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption."… (more)